A book is an arrangement of twenty-six phonetic symbols, ten numerals, and about eight punctuation marks, and people can cast their eyes over these and envision the eruption of Mount Vesuvius or the Battle of Waterloo.

We were all gun nuts and they were called varmints, crows were, because they ate grain and so did we.

Laughter or crying is what a human being does when there's nothing else he can do.

Here is the solution to the American drug problem suggested a couple years back by the wife of our President: "Just say no.

The heartbreaking necessity of lying about reality and the heartbreaking impossibilty of lying about it

It is always pitiful when any human being falls into a condition hardly more respectable than that of an animal. How much more pitiful it is when the person who falls has had all the advantages!

Terry Southern is the illegitimate son of Mack Sennett and Edna Saint Vincent Millay.